EUreka3D-XR is featured at the conference with a presentation about challenges in 3D digitisation
20-22 May 2026, in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
A joint presentation by David Iglésias Franch (CRDI – Ajuntament de Girona and president of Photoconsortium) and Axelle Vanmaele (meemoo) will take place within the framework of the EUreka3D-XR project at the 2and3D Photography – Practice & Prophecies conference. The event will be hosted by the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam on 21 May 2026.
The presentation, titled “Challenges in 3D Digitization: Experiences and Resources,” will share practical insights from recent work on 3D digitisation in photographic archives.
The talk begins with an experience from the audiovisual archive of the Ajuntament de Girona, managed by the CRDI – Center for Image Research and Dissemination. In 2022, a digitisation initiative led the team to experiment with 3D digitisation of a selection of daguerreotypes from the collection.
Although photogrammetry is a stable and widely used method for creating 3D models, the particular material and reflective qualities of daguerreotypes presented several technical challenges. Achieving high-quality visual results required experimentation, technical adjustments, and a series of iterative pre-tests. Through this process, the team developed specific solutions to improve the accuracy and visual quality of the 3D models.
The lessons learned during this project, together with reflections on how 3D cultural heritage can be reused, helped inspire the development of the EUreka3D-XR initiative, which is currently underway. As the European Commission encourages cultural institutions to accelerate the digitisation of heritage — particularly in 3D — many organisations are also facing the need to strengthen digital skills, knowledge, and technical capacity.
EUreka3D-XR addresses this need by offering pilot scenarios, training opportunities, capacity-building activities, tools, and resources to support museums, archives, and other cultural heritage institutions in working with 3D and XR technologies. The project also promotes new ways to reuse digitised cultural assets through immersive storytelling and innovative audience engagement.
The presentation will provide a hands-on perspective from a photographic archive, highlighting how 3D and XR technologies can support the institutional mission of sharing and reusing photographic and cultural heritage collections for the benefit of communities and stakeholders.
It will also showcase current and upcoming learning resources for the management and reuse of 3D collections, an area that is becoming increasingly important across the cultural and creative sectors. Examples of pilot XR experiences will demonstrate how both 2D and 3D cultural resources can be reused to create engaging digital narratives.
Finally, the talk will connect these developments with the opportunities offered by the Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage, one of the European Union’s major initiatives to support the digital transformation of the cultural heritage sector.
Speakers
David Iglésias Franch is Expert in the management of photographic and audiovisual heritage. Knowledge in digital image, archives, metadata quality, photography conservation and digital preservation. He is the Head of Department of Photography and Audiovisual Records at Girona City Council. He’s been the Chair of the Expert Group in Photographic and Audiovisual Archives of the International Council on Archives (ICA). He is Director and teacher of the Graduate Diploma in Management, Preservation and Dissemination of Photographic Archives at UAB Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He is the current president of Photoconsortium Association for the the promotion and enhancement of the culture of photography and photographic heritage, and is committed in the areas of digital cultural heritage, access and reuse of cultural content, citizens’ engagement and education.
Axelle Vanmaele has a Master in Eastern-European Languages and Culture. She joined meemoo in 2021. Until the end of 2023 she worked at meemoo as the coordinator of a large-scale digitisation project for glass plate negatives and positives. As part of this project she was also responsible for the dissemination of the digitisation expertise gained with the execution of this project. In 2024 Axelle joined team Expertise of meemoo. She currently coordinates a collaborative project that aims at the creation of Visual Name Authority, an authority list of person names of people who are relevant for cultural heritage in Flanders that will be enriched with photographic portraits to be used as reference images in face recognition to enrich descriptive metadata.